Former Missouri State bookstore director to serve five-plus years after stealing more than $1 million

Aug. 30, 2013

Mark Brixey

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$81,669

The loose bills MSU auditors found in Brixey’s desk The loose change auditors found in his desk The most Brixey stole in one year, 2010 The amount Brixey stole from 2003 to August 2012 What he owes the IRS on his unreported, ill-gotten income The amount he was ordered to pay in fines: $100 for each of the three federal counts

Eligible for pension

In 10 years Mark Brixey will be old enough (58½) to start drawing a state pension of up to $2,719 a month. Brixey is eligible for full retirement benefits when his age and years of service equals 80. He was born in January 1965 and has 21 years and seven months of service. He also has the option to claim reduced benefits before reaching the 80 mark. No law prevents Brixey, a former state employee, from receiving his retirement benefits, according to Krista Myer, communications manager for the Missouri State Employee's Retirement System. The $2,719 figure includes a temporary benefit that would end at age 62. For Brixey, his base benefit would be $1,849 a month once he turns 62. The system offers two retirement options with different provisions, such as the temporary benefit and different ways to figure cost-of-living increases.

Timeline

Aug. 2, 2012: Brixey, on vacation, tells MSU auditors a missing check is in his locked desk at work. The auditors have a key to the desk. They don’t find the check but find $81,000 in loose cash. Aug. 17, 2012: Brixey resigns before he is about to be fired. He had offered no explanation for the missing check or the loose cash. Aug. 20, 2012: Clif Smart, MSU’s interim president, holds a press conference to disclose the missing money, estimated at $400,000. He states that the university believes Brixey is responsible. Aug. 31, 2012: Smart explains that as auditors reach back in time, year by year, the new figure appears to be $500,000. The university says it will no longer offer an ongoing tally of the amount believed to be stolen. March 26: Brixey pleads guilty to stealing $1.16 million from October 2003 to August 2012 while bookstore director. The agreement states that his wife, Dawn, will not face charges in the matter. April 2: Dawn Brixey resigns from MSU after working there 26 ½ years. She quit right before she was scheduled to talk to her supervisor about what she knew — if anything — about her husband’s criminal activity. Aug. 29: A federal judge sentences Brixey to five years and three months in prison.

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Mark Brixey, former director of Missouri State University’s bookstore who admitted stealing more than $1 million, was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Springfield to five years and three months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner also ordered Brixey to make restitution of $1,329,484 to MSU, the university’s insurance carrier and to the Internal Revenue Service. He owes MSU $163,237; the insurance carrier $1 million; and the IRS $166,247 in taxes for his unreported, ill-gotten income.

He was ordered to pay 10 percent of any income he earns, or $100 a month, whichever is greater, toward restitution.

Brixey, who pleaded guilty March 26, must report to the Bureau of Prisons by Oct. 15. He had no prior criminal record.

Brixey, wearing a coat and tie, offered a lengthy, tearful apology prior to sentencing. He told the judge he had slipped into a “shadow world” and would be willing to lecture nationally to inform book store operators and textbook-company executives about how to avoid theft.

“Your honor, I am a good man and I made a huge mistake,” Brixey said.

“I want to apologize to President (Clif) Smart and the Board of Governors for the choices I made,” he said. “I offer no excuses for what I did because what I did, quite frankly, was inexcusable.”

“I hurt a lot of people and I am sorry for that,” he said.

Federal inmates can knock off as much as 15 percent of their sentence for good behavior. There is no federal equivalent of parole.

With 15 percent credit, Brixey would be released in four years and 5½ months.

Brixey was convicted of three counts: wire fraud, money laundering, and filing a false tax return for 2010. Don Ledford, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said he was prohibited from saying if the Brixey filed a joint return with his wife, Dawn, that year.

The charge does not specify if it was a joint return.

Brixey’s March plea agreement stated that his wife would not be charged in connection to the theft.

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In court on Thursday, federal prosecutor Michael Oliver said it is likely that Dawn Brixey knew the couple was living well beyond its means.

“There is no way that his family did not know that the life that they were leading was not earned by money he made at Missouri State,” Oliver said in court.

Brixey, 48, of Ozark, said in court that his wife, who also had worked at MSU, knew nothing about his criminal actions.

He choked up as he talked about how they first met while working at the bookstore years ago.

“If she is guilty of anything, it’s loving a flawed man,” Brixey said.

Dawn Brixey resigned from MSU April 2 after 26½ years of working in the admissions office. She quit just before she was scheduled to talk to her supervisor about what she knew, if anything, about her husband’s embezzlement.

Dawn Brixey was not in the courtroom. She did not respond to a request for comment and neither did the lawyer who represented her earlier this year.

Mark Brixey specifically apologized to MSU Bursar Doug Wilson and Sharon Long, head cashier in the Bursar’s Office. The Bursar’s Office had allowed him to cash checks made out to the bookstore and not to him personally.

“They, in no way did anything inappropriate or were involved in this at all,” he said.

“I need to apologize to the entire staff of Missouri State University,” he said. “It is a great institution with exceptional people doing an exceptional job.”

Brixey even thanked the MSU auditors and federal prosecutors who brought him to justice.

After the sentencing hearing, Oliver would not elaborate on how Brixey might have spent the money. In March, both Smart and Tammy Dickinson, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said they don’t know where the money went.

“We are here because of a gross exploitation of trust motivated by pure greed,” Oliver said in court.

Perhaps the greatest damage, he said, was to MSU’s reputation.

“Mr. Brixey took the name of this institution — the largest in the city — and drug it through the mud,” he said.

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Paul Kincaid, chief of staff for Smart, was in the courtroom and when asked for comment handed out prepared remarks from Smart.

“The justice system has worked,” Smart said. “This was an important step in helping the Missouri State campus community get some degree of closure on this horrible episode. On behalf of the university, I want to thank the law enforcement officials and the court system for their prompt and diligent work in bringing this case to a timely resolution.”

Before issuing the sentence, the judge said he believed Brixey was “appropriately remorseful.”

“The breach of trust — and you recognize this — it was significant,” he told Brixey. “As you said, you took advantage of your friends. You took advantage of your employees. It is an extremely serious offense.”

Brixey stole from the bookstore from 2003 to August 2012. His biggest years were 2010 and 2011, when he pilfered $194,521 and $191,202, respectively. The thefts, according to authorities, totaled $1.16 million.

MSU has been reimbursed $1 million through a theft-loss insurance policy. Brixey’s theft was discovered in August 2012.

The restitution ordered gives Brixey credit for $81,000 in loose cash that MSU auditors found in his desk, but it does not yet give him credit for $144,000 in certificates of deposit the federal government has seized.

Brixey worked at the bookstore as a student at MSU. He graduated in 1989.

He was hired full time in January 1991 and became a supervisor in 1993. He was promoted to director in October 2000.